


Reformed Assassin Bucky Barnes

by Kangofu_CB



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental friendship, Alpine (marvel) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Barney Barton kinda sucks, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes in hiding, Bucky doesn't want to make friends but Clint just sort of happens to him, Bucky is a badass, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Coffee Shops, Happy Ending, Kidnapping, Lucky (marvel) - Freeform, M/M, Minor Mentions of Violence, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, SHIELD Agent Clint Barton, SHIELD Agent Phil Coulson, SHIELD agent Natasha Romanov, mafia type bad guys, tracksuit draculas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:47:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28704654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangofu_CB/pseuds/Kangofu_CB
Summary: He isn’t in the habit of picking up strays and he isn’t about to start now. He remembers enough of a life from many years ago to know that picking up trouble-prone blonds isn’t a habit he ought to be falling back into.Unfortunately, trouble finds him anyway.He’s cutting down the side-street that leads to the shop when he hears the sickening sound of fist-on-skin contact, and he rounds the corner to find tall-blond-and-trouble in a literal back-alley brawl with four guys nearly as big as he is. They’re wearing black and white-striped Adidas tracksuits, and Bucky hears at least one of them call the blond guy ‘bro’ in a thick Russian accent.Bucky’s not going to get involved.He’s not going to get involved, right up to the point that one of the tracksuit thugs pulls a gun out of the back of his pants and releases the safety, and Bucky realizes that he is going to get involved because he’s not going to let anybody get shot in broad daylight if he can help it.Fuck’s sake.OR - escaped, former assassin Bucky Barnes accidentally makes friends with a blond disaster.  It goes about as well as expected.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 95
Kudos: 568
Collections: Charity Hawktion 2020





	Reformed Assassin Bucky Barnes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hawksonfire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawksonfire/gifts).



> Written as part of the Charity Hawktion, 2020, for Arson who so graciously and generously bid on me and then requested this fic! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have loved writing it!

The asset wakes, confused and shivering.

That’s not unusual.

It always wakes confused and shivering, on a cold slab of a table, surrounded by technicians barking out orders and guards who push and shove, muscling it into the chair in a hurry as though they think it might not comply.

The asset always complies. 

What is unusual is that this time, the asset awakens, confused and shivering, still in its cryotube, the lid precariously cracked, to the sound of silence. 

The asset lies in the tube for a long time. 

It is waiting for its handlers. Orders. 

Technicians. 

Instructions.

 _Routine_.

There is safety in the routine, even if it is only in knowing that as long as the asset does not resist, it will not be punished. 

It stays in the tube until the cold dissipates and the shivering stops and the pervasive silence around it forces it to climb out of the tube and investigate. The lack of the usual routine is unnerving. The asset doesn’t feel _safe_. 

There is no one. There are no technicians, no handlers, and no orders. 

No one puts it in the chair. 

The asset eventually finds the chair, and, for a moment, sits in it, making the shivers return as it clenches its teeth against the expected rush of pain.

The pain doesn’t come.

No one comes. 

After a while, the asset gets out of the chair and explores. The base they’ve stored it in is abandoned - obviously done in haste, with computers still only partially shut down and food still in refrigerators the asset hadn’t known existed. 

The asset has been forgotten.

It is a… relief. 

The asset hasn’t felt relief in a very long time, except the relief that comes from being put into storage without punishment. 

This is different.

The asset is _safe_. 

The asset scavenges the base for anything useful. It is well-trained on making use of available resources, of blending in and sneaking out. It disables the security feeds and wipes the last twenty four hours as a precaution. It raids locker rooms and weapons storage, until it is dressed in basic black, sturdy boots, with a variety of easily-concealed weapons, mostly knives, hidden on its body.

Then the asset slips out of the base and into the dark of the nighttime forest surrounding the facility. 

The asset becomes the ghost he was already rumored to be. 

**

_Eight years later…_

James hasn’t thought of himself as the asset in years. It’s taken a long time - a lot of hiding in run-down buildings and relearning his own name and keeping stacks and stacks of journals - but eventually he’s able to think of himself as, if not ‘Bucky,’ then at least ‘James’. Some days feel more Bucky, and some days feel more James. Today is a James day. 

But he hasn’t felt like the asset in years. 

There’s no denying the skills are there - he doesn’t think he will ever be able to enter a new place and not automatically assess it for threats and exits. But he has at least stopped immediately determining how he can cause the most damage in the shortest amount of time. 

So when the tall, blond man walks into his usual coffee shop and his brain automatically labels him ‘threat,’ James is surprised. He’s in a small cafe in Brooklyn. James has been here nearly six months now, and he’s been thinking of settling in permanently. The world feels safer, more welcoming than it used to. The neighborhood is a little familiar, but not too much, and he’s found a job working under the table for a construction company (turns out there are some practical applications for the skills he’s picked up over the years). He wears long sleeves and a glove on his left hand and tells people it was burned in a fire and he feels like a _person_ these days. He looks over his shoulder less and orders frappuccinos more and it’s _nice._

But now there’s this guy.

At first glance, nothing about the man is threatening. He’s tall enough that James has to crane a little bit to look up at him, and he’s a bit battered around the edges, with a bandaid on his jaw and taped up fingers, but a crooked smile as he orders the biggest black coffee the shop provides. 

But something about the way he holds his shoulders - straight and tense - and the way he looks around the room with his eyes lingering on James for just a second, sets off a lot of very old, mostly unused alarm bells in James’ brain. It’s a professional assessment, automatic the same way James does, and the brief once-over James gets is the sort of thing he’s done himself, in other circumstances. 

It’s almost enough to make him leave.

But he’s settled at a table with a newspaper and a Danish and if he makes a hasty retreat, that’s going to draw more attention than less. So James stays in his seat, hidden behind his paper. He tugs his sleeve down a little further over the glove, just in case. 

He’s never quite managed to reach the point where no one notices him. He’s too broad, too muscled, and frankly too scruffy for that. He still keeps his hair long and he only makes a half-assed attempt at shaving every once in a while, so he knows what he looks like. Rough around the edges. Some of it is because the edges mean people don’t bother him. He hasn’t been hassled for his wallet in _years_. Part of it is because he still doesn’t do that great with scissors around his face, and cutting his own hair has never really gone completely according to plan. So maybe it’s that - he just looks like the kind of guy you clock in a place as _do not mess with_ \- and the new guy will move on. 

Instead, the guy takes a seat at the table next to James’ - even though there are a half-dozen other empty seats in the place - and makes a downright pornographic noise as he takes his first sip of coffee. 

James sighs silently behind the paper. 

But the guy doesn’t speak to him. He just enjoys the coffee - more quiet noises of enjoyment until there’s a sad one when the cup’s empty - and then he shoots James a little half-hearted salute as he gets up to leave, dumping his cup in the trash on his way out the door. He’s still tall, and broad, and battered, but he moves smoothly and lightly on the balls of his feet and James can’t help but stare as he goes. 

And if his eyes linger on the guy’s ass, well, it’s New York City and no one here gives a damn. 

**

The guy becomes a regular. It’s sort of irritating, because Bucky ( _today is a Bucky day_ ) is also something of a regular. The Daily Grind is only a block from his place, but it’s a convoluted block away, one that has a few twists and turns and at least one alleyway, so he feels good about how close it is without compromising his location. But the blond guy turns up about half as often as Bucky is there. Sometimes he’s on high alert, and sometimes he looks exhausted, and one very memorable time he turns up covered in bruises and cracked knuckles, practically asleep in his coffee but vibrating with anxiety in a way that makes Bucky want to take him home and keep watch until he gets some sleep. 

It’s a weird feeling that leaves Bucky avoiding the coffee shop for several days afterwards. He isn’t in the habit of picking up strays and he isn’t about to start now. He remembers enough of a life from many years ago to know that picking up trouble-prone blonds isn’t a habit he ought to be falling back into. 

Unfortunately, trouble finds him anyway. 

He’s cutting down the side-street that leads to the shop when he hears the sickening sound of fist-on-skin contact, and he rounds the corner to find tall-blond-and-trouble in a literal back-alley brawl with four guys nearly as big as he is. They’re wearing black and white-striped Adidas tracksuits, and Bucky hears at least one of them call the blond guy ‘bro’ in a thick Russian accent.

Bucky’s not going to get involved.

He’s not, mostly because blondie is holding his own with a combination of dirty street fighting and the sort of discipline that speaks to training. 

He’s _not_ going to get involved, right up to the point that one of the tracksuit thugs pulls a gun out of the back of his pants and releases the safety, and Bucky realizes that he _is_ going to get involved because he’s not going to let anybody get shot in broad daylight if he can help it. 

Fuck’s sake. 

Bucky’s moving before he’s made a conscious decision to do it, throwing his left arm out to knock the gun away, and then punching said gun-wielding thug in the face. He remembers, at the very last second, to pull the punch enough that he doesn’t break the guy’s neck as well as his jaw, and then he doesn’t think much at all beyond the _duck-dodge-kick-punch_ of the fight. 

The fight doesn’t last long. Barely enough to get Bucky’s heart rate up, but enough that he knows he’s going to be riding the adrenaline of it for half the day. 

When it’s over, all of the tracksuits are lying on the ground and they aren’t getting back up. The one Bucky hit is unconscious, but breathing - he checks - and the gun is still being cradled carefully in Bucky’s left hand. 

“Huh.” The blond guy says, looking Bucky over carefully. “I thought you’d be good in a fight. Nice to know I was right.”

Bucky bristles even though he knows that not only should he _not_ be offended, but he should be _concerned_ that this guy had pegged him as a fighter when they haven’t so much as exchanged a word. 

“Lemme buy you a coffee?” the other man continues, before Bucky can decide which emotion to go with, and before he can disappear back down the alley and out of the city completely. “Feels like I owe you one, after that.”

“What about them?” Bucky asks, gesturing. One of the men groans, punctuating his question. 

The blond kicks the offender with a scowl. He sighs, looks up at the gap between the buildings over them at the clear blue sky. He scratches at the back of his head while he thinks about it, then he shakes his head and steps over one of the men on the ground. 

“They’ll probably leave me alone for a while, if they’re smart,” he says, and then nods at the gun in Bucky’s hand. “And if you get rid of that.”

Bucky shrugs. It’s not his business, he reminds himself, if the guy doesn’t wanna call the cops. He strips the gun efficiently, dropping pieces of it in various garbage cans and down the sewer as the two of them make their way to The Daily Grind in silence. By the time they get there, the gun is gone like it never existed, and Bucky knows that the guy has made mental note of everything Bucky’s done so far. 

It makes him nervous, knowing he’s being catalogued, but Bucky can’t think of a good way to extricate himself from the situation. He thinks it’s probably more suspicious if he bails on coffee when they’re about to walk into the shop they both frequent than it would be to accept a drink as thanks. The guy has seen Bucky here often enough to know Bucky’s something of a regular. If he runs off now, he won’t be able to come back. 

And they’ve got that new latte thing he likes. Bucky decides it’s a very minor risk in the grand scheme of risky things he’s done in the last half hour.

“I’m Clint,” the guy says, holding the door open for Bucky with an exaggerated flourish. 

“James,” Bucky tells him cautiously. He’s learned over the years that saying his name is Bucky is like waving a red flag for some people, wanting to know if he was named after _the_ Bucky Barnes, and it’s usually best to just let it lie. He can be Bucky in his own head, when he feels like it, and James to everyone else. It’s easier. 

“Well James,” Clint says, and he shoots Bucky a crooked grin, “seems like I owe you a drink. And since it’s nine in the morning and I’ve been told that’s not a socially acceptable time for alcohol, coffee will have to do.”

He lets Clint buy him a caramanilla latte and a pastry, lets him sit down at the table across from him and give him more crooked grins and the occasional outrageous wink and tell him stories that have obviously been edited for their audience, about exploits with what Clint calls the Tracksuit Draculas and the apartment building that’s not too far away with the residents that it’s far too obvious Clint cares about, and Bucky thinks about the go bag under his floorboards and the little pots of herbs he’s got on his windowsill and debates skipping town. 

**

The problem, Bucky decides, is that he doesn’t want to leave. 

He’s got his plants and a job he doesn’t hate and a coffee shop he likes, and there’s a stray cat that hangs around sometimes if Bucky puts out tuna, and it’s the most like a person he’s felt in a long, long time. He’s not quite ready to abandon the life he’s building here. And Clint doesn’t know where he lives, after all, and doesn’t know his last name or where he works or anything at all about Bucky, really, and he can keep it that way. 

He can. 

Except now, whenever Clint turns up at the coffee shop, he invites himself to Bucky’s table, where he usually slides a pastry across the table as a kind of peace offering. Sometimes he prattles about things - his dog, his neighbors, his hobbies, but notably not his work (which should have been Bucky’s first clue) - and sometimes he’s silent, sitting hunched over a cup with a haunted look on his eyes (which should have been Bucky’s second clue). It’s companionable, whether Clint’s chattering or quiet, because he doesn’t seem to expect much of anything from Bucky either way. Sometimes Bucky adds to the conversation - his herbs are growing wildly, especially the mint which is apparently a menace - and sometimes he just grunts in what seem like appropriate places. Clint doesn’t seem to mind him either way. 

It’s starting to feel comfortable. Safe. Unthreatening. 

Which of course is when Bucky realizes it’s anything but that. 

He’s been bitching about work. He’s careful to leave out the identifying details, like what project they’re working on or where it is or even _what_ it is, but Clint is watching him with too-perceptive blue eyes as Bucky complains about safety corners being cut and how something would’ve almost fallen off a crane last week, if Bucky hadn’t noticed the rusted link in the chain in time. 

Clint listens attentively and sips his coffee and scrutinizes him until he trails off, suddenly self-conscious. 

“You know,” Clint says, thoughtful, and looks down at the coffee cup he’s now twisting in circles on the table while he thinks. “If you ever wanted to do something else, maybe put some of your other skills to use, I know a guy-”

“No,” Bucky growls. Fear is gripping tightly inside his chest, squeezing his heart until he feels like he can’t breathe with it. He’s fucked up, no one is meant to know anything about his other skills, least of all this man who makes himself seem affable and nonthreatening, but who put three (nearly four) men out on the ground and barely broke a sweat. Bucky has fucked up by letting this man see his face nearly every day for weeks, who has drawn him in close and lulled him into a sense of security Bucky’s not entitled to have.

Clint must see something on his face, maybe the tensed jaw or the blank mask Bucky’s pulled over the gut-wrenching terror, because he holds his hands up in a placating gesture with his eyebrows near his hairline. “Sorry,” he says, and he looks it, but Bucky doesn’t trust the expression anymore. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“I gotta,” Bucky says, but he doesn’t mention what he’s gotta do, he just gets up from the table and walks away. He doesn’t look back, but he takes his cup with him, just in case. He’s drank from it, he’s touched it with his bare hand. He takes it with him and hopes he hasn’t touched the table too much while he’s been sitting there, though he knows the staff barely wipe the things down and even if Clint has it dusted for prints it’s likely to have the fingerprints of a dozen strangers all over it anyway. It’s unlikely Bucky has prints in any databases anywhere, either, but everything feels like a risk at the moment. 

He walks away with a pounding heart, and he takes a confusing, circuitous route back to his apartment, and then he squats in it with a knife in his hand and a careful eye on the streets below him. 

**

It takes a couple of weeks. 

It takes a couple of weeks of no one breaking down his apartment door, and no overly suspicious characters on his street, and no one turning up at his job for Bucky to feel even slightly safe again. He’s more the asset than he has been in years, watching every shadow and clocking anyone who looks even slightly out of place.

There are a lot of peculiar people on the streets, because it’s New York, but none of them are more peculiar than usual. And none of them have broad shoulders or blond hair, or that little habit of cocking their head to the side when they listen to other people talk. 

But it’s been a couple of weeks and Bucky hasn’t noticed a cause for alarm, and he’s been _looking._ So he very cautiously decides that he’s not going to be yanked off the street by black-suited government agents in unmarked vans, and he starts to feel like he can let his guard down. 

He still doesn’t go to The Daily Grind.

He thinks about it. Bucky misses the caramanilla latte (caramel and vanilla and coffee all in one delicious cup is a magical invention) and the individual-sized quiches (if the individual in question is a small child, perhaps, but he's not above buying four or five at a time), but it’s risky behavior and he hasn’t avoided Hydra and recalibration this long to be worn down by a lack of caffeine and baked eggs. He tries a half dozen other places in the area but it’s not quite the same. On his worst days, Bucky wonders if it’s the lack of company instead of the very specific bean roast the other shop had used, and then ruthlessly suppresses the thought. 

He’s good at ruthlessly suppressing things he doesn’t want to think about. He’s had sixty years of practice. 

So of course even with all his careful planning and sacrificing and _suffering_ , he runs into Clint at the park. 

Bucky is running, because he can’t just rely on manual labor to keep himself in shape and busy, and the skill of outrunning people chasing you is one that will never go out of style.

Clint is decidedly _not_ running. Clint looks like he’s barely awake, sitting on a bench with a steaming paper cup of coffee from _Bucky’s_ favorite coffee shop, with a fat yellow retriever mix panting up at him with a stick in its mouth. Clint is once again bruised and battered, with a row of butterfly bandages at his hairline, and splinted fingers on his left hand, and an impressive purple-green mark on the edge of his jaw. 

He probably wouldn’t have even noticed Bucky, if Bucky hadn’t stopped in the middle of the running path to stare at him. 

“Oh,” Clint says, blinking at him, slow, slow, _slow_ , like he’s been given the good drugs. And maybe he has, he’s certainly beat up enough to need them. Now that Bucky’s really looking, he can see the way he’s listing a little to one side, like he’s favoring ribs. “Hi.” Clint gives him the dopiest, slow-growing grin, and Bucky changes his assessment from _maybe on the good drugs_ to _definitely on the good drugs_ and _probably should not use public transit_. 

“Hi,” Bucky says cautiously. He should walk away. Clint is obviously deep enough in his hydrocodone haze that he wouldn’t be able to give anyone an accurate recounting of Bucky’s presence here, and Bucky should absolutely walk away. 

He doesn’t walk away. 

After a second of Bucky standing and staring and Clint grinning sugar-sweet, a frown starts to take over Clint’s face, and then he blinks. “Oh,” he says again. He grimaces. Gone is the too-perceptive gaze that Bucky is used to, and instead Clint is an open book in a way that he’s not been before. Every fleeting emotion that passes through his mind is painted across his face, wiping the happy grin off his face and replacing it with sorrow and then shame. “Sorry,” he says, and he hunches further into himself, frowning down at his coffee. 

Bucky takes a couple of steps closer, glancing around. No one in the park is looking at them, and no one looks like they’re just waiting for Bucky to get close enough to grab him. Hell, he doesn’t even usually run in a park at all, much less this park, so there’s no way this can be a planned trap for him. Clint couldn’t possibly have expected to see him here. Bucky gets close enough that the dog turns to him and wags its tail hopefully. 

“Can’t throw the stick,” Clint tells Bucky, mournful. He’s still hunched over his cup, but now he’s looking sadly at the dog instead of looking sadly at Bucky.

“What?” Bucky asks, bewildered. He’s eyeing the dog with suspicion, but the dog just wags its tail harder. 

“I can’t throw his stick,” Clint clarifies. “He wants to play fetch but I can’t throw it.” He sounds like he’s at a funeral, he’s so sad about it. 

The dog trots over and drops its stick at Bucky’s feet. 

Bucky heaves a sigh at the general direction of the sky and thinks _this might as well happen_. He tosses the stick about fifty feet away and the dog scrabbles for it like it’s the best day of his life and his birthday all at once. He brings the stick back immediately and then sits on his haunches and waits for Bucky to throw it again, a big doggy grin on his face. 

Clint is looking at Bucky like he’s the second fuckin’ coming of Christ. 

Bucky has been tortured, okay, he doesn’t deserve this. He shouldn’t see that look of open adoration on anyone’s face, especially not pointed at him. He turns away to throw the stick again, a bit further this time. 

The dog races after it and comes back, dropping it at his feet.

Clint just watches, apparently content to let Bucky play with his dog.

The process is repeated a few more times, until Bucky is throwing the stick far enough that it takes the dog several seconds to come back with it, and after a handful of those throws he finally comes back and just flops at Bucky’s feet instead of dropping the stick. He’s panting happily, and when Bucky glances down at him, he rolls over and shows his belly, obviously looking for pets. Bucky can’t even imagine what it must be like, to be that trusting.

Clint is beaming at Bucky. 

“Everybody loves Lucky,” Clint informs him sagely. “He’s the best dog.”

The dog perks his ears when he hears his name, but he’s still shamelessly begging for Bucky to pet him, so Bucky crouches down, glances around the park cautiously one more time, then digs his fingers into the thick fur of the dog’s belly and gives him a vigorous scratch.

The dog whines happily. 

Bucky scratches and scratches, until he thinks a normal person’s arm would be tired, and then he gives a few long, soothing pets, before standing back up and dusting his hands off. 

He’s got dog fur all over him. The cat is probably going to hate him. 

Clint is practically asleep in his coffee cup. It’s fall, but the sun is higher in the sky and breaking through the trees, creating little warm patches of light, one of which Clint has strategically set himself up in. He’s huddled into his sweatshirt, which looks like it might have a faded Iowa Hawkeyes logo on it, and his socks don’t match. Bucky snaps his fingers at Lucky and he stands up, shaking his fur out with a jangle of tags. Clint blinks sleepily and then cracks his neck like he’s trying to wake up. 

Bucky can’t just _leave_ him here.

“C’mon,” Bucky says, reaching out to take the coffee cup in his left hand - the black leather glove and sweatshirt less out of place now that the weather is turning colder - and holding his right hand out for Clint to take. “Up and at ‘em.”

Clint blinks at him, surprised and sleepy, but he takes Bucky’s hand and lets himself be pulled up and off the bench. “Let’s go, Lucky,” he mumbles, like his mouth is full of sand, and Lucky gives a happy bark and falls into step beside them. 

“Which way?” Bucky asks Clint, and honestly he’s halfway expecting to be told to fuck off, or given some bullshit excuse, but Clint just rattles off an address that’s only a couple of blocks away, and Bucky starts walking him home, keeping his left elbow out and his eyes open. If this is an elaborate trap, Bucky will honestly deserve it, but nothing about it is setting off any of his old instincts, except the ones that are even older than the asset, the ones that recognize a blond that’s on the verge of getting himself into deep shit and already calculating ways to mitigate the damage. 

“Sorry,” Clint says after a few minutes of casual silence, and Bucky stops scanning the streets to give him a raised eyebrow. “For the” - he makes a gesture that means nothing but seems to encompass a lot - “you know. The thing. At the coffee place.”

Bucky grunts. He nudges Clint further to the right as a group of rowdy teens pass them, too many in the group for Bucky to keep much distance between them and him. He herds Clint closer to the building. It won’t help Clint to have his ribs jostled in a crowd, and New Yorkers are famous for throwing elbows, even the kids. 

“Okay,” Bucky says after they’ve passed the group and he’s watched them round a corner. “Don’t do it again.” he adds, after a second. 

“Kay,” Clint tells him happily. Like all is forgiven and he’s forgotten about it entirely. 

Bucky hasn’t forgotten about it, but Clint looks so sincere - had seemed so genuine in his apology, and so pleased that Bucky’s said okay - that he starts to feel like he _could_ forget about it. Or at least like he could move past it. It doesn’t help that he’s been staring at Bucky like he hung the moon for the last hour, or maybe it does help, but not in a way that means Bucky’s gonna have any objectivity about the situation.

They arrive at a slightly run-down apartment building, signs of families and attempts at maintenance all around, but still old and a bit ramshackle. Bucky thinks he can relate to the building at least, if not the families and the signs of well-loved care. 

“See you later.” Clint yawns, and then buzzes himself and Lucky into the building, making no effort to hide the entry code from Bucky, and he waves before the door clangs shut behind him. Bucky watches the building for a while after he leaves, from the safety of a nearby roof where he can get clear sightlines, but no one suspicious appears, and Clint doesn’t come back out. A window opens onto a fire escape on the fifth floor and Lucky’s head appears, his snout lazing on the sill with his face turned into the sun as he pants happily, but nothing else happens. No one turns up, Clint doesn’t reappear, and there is nothing except the busy sounds of New York. 

Eventually, Bucky climbs off the roof and goes home, finally convinced Clint’s not part of some nefarious plot to recapture him.

The kind of subtlety this much of a long game would take is kind of beyond Hydra, anyway, in Bucky’s experience. 

**

He still waits a few days before he goes back to The Daily Grind. 

Actually, what happens is that he talks himself into and out of going multiple times, occasionally even getting as far as halfway through the route to the shop before changing his mind, but eventually, the lure of a caramanilla latte proves too tempting to resist, and he heads over. 

He tells himself he’s not disappointed when Clint isn’t there and doesn’t show up while Bucky’s hunched in a corner with a coffee and no pastry and a bad case of itchy shoulder blades. He’s positioned himself away from the windows with his back to the wall and the fire exit close at hand, but it doesn’t soothe the anxiety he’s given himself being in this place, so as soon as his cup is empty he heads out again. 

Feeling like Clint’s not out to get him hasn’t completely eased his anxiety that _someone_ is out to get him, and anyway it’s not paranoia if it’s true. 

It takes a few more visits before he’s finally able to relax again. The baristas are the same as they always are, and the ones who recognize him from before give him warm smiles and welcome him back, and at least one says “Oh hey, it’s been a while,” but in the most casual way possible so that Bucky can’t work himself up in knots about it. He just grunts and nods and takes the proffered cup before retreating to what he thinks of as _his_ table. 

Half a dozen visits later, Clint finally shows up, stumbling through the door like he’s only half-awake even though it’s four in the afternoon. Bucky works from six to three, so he only ever turns up after that, which is late for the amount of caffeine in a large coffee, but he’s also got better-living-through-experimental-science on his side, and it’s never bothered him. He’s got things other than caffeine to keep him awake at night. That said, he’s got no idea how Clint manages to drink the amount of coffee Bucky’s seen him drink and still sleep. 

Maybe he doesn’t sleep and that’s why he looks so exhausted. 

He brightens up when he spots Bucky, though, and gives a little wave before he gets in line. Bucky lifts his fingers in what might constitute a return of the gesture, if one were being generous. Clint makes his way over to the table once he’s got his coffee, and he holds out a Danish like a peace offering. He doesn’t sit down, instead choosing to stand around awkwardly looking like he’s unsure of his welcome. 

Bucky gives him a long, measured glance, and then he kicks the seat across from him out a little, so that Clint can sit down if he wants. It’s as much of an invitation as Bucky’s able to manage, but Clint takes it. 

He drops himself into the open chair bonelessly, then winces. 

Ribs for sure then, Bucky figures, and gives Clint a judgmental eyebrow. 

Clint shrugs.

Bucky rolls his eyes. 

Honestly, it’s impressive the amount of nonverbal communication they’ve managed to pick up in the weeks they’ve known each other. 

The Danish is a cherry and cream cheese one, and Bucky’s never _said_ that it’s his favorite, but Clint looks proud of himself at the noise Bucky makes when he bites into it. 

“So,” Bucky says, once he’s swallowed the mouthful and washed it down with a sip of coffee. “What did you do to yourself?”

“You should see the other guy,” Clint quips instead of answering, and Bucky rolls his eyes again, but he lets it go. “Thanks for the other day,” Clint adds. “Coulda made it home, but it was nice of you to play with Lucky.”

Bucky isn’t convinced that Clint could have even made it down the block without more injury to himself, but he keeps that thought to himself. “You’re welcome,” he says instead of arguing, and Clint’s shoulders drop nearly-imperceptibly. Like he was gearing up for a fight and is relieved he’s not going to have one. 

They sit in mostly-comfortable silence while Bucky finishes his pastry and his coffee, and Clint leans on his fist and yawns, and it’s… nice. It’s something Bucky’s missed, which is not a thought he necessarily wants to dwell on. He still takes his cup and the crumpled pastry wrapper with him when he leaves, but it feels more like a habit than a precaution. 

Running into Clint at the coffee shop starts to feel like a habit again too. Clint’s not there every time Bucky goes, but he’s there often enough that it feels right to see him. And sometimes even when he’s not there, Bucky will find his drink has been prepaid, along with some sort of sweet from the baked goods case. 

Bucky starts to pre-pay Clint’s coffees, too, though he doesn’t leave him any treats otherwise. 

It almost feels like the missed-connections section of the newspaper, when Clint hasn’t been around in a while, and Bucky reluctantly admits to himself that he likes the guy. Maybe more than likes him.

It’s a thing that won’t go anywhere. Hell, it’s a thing that _can’t_ go anywhere, not really. 

But.

It’s nice - the attention and the friendly banter and the gentle sort of flirting. Well, Clint’s flirting is more like being hit in the face with a newspaper - blatant and unmistakable - but it’s delivered in such an over-the-top way, complete with outrageous winks and the occasional nudge of his foot or his knee against Bucky’s, that Bucky can’t be sure whether or not to take it seriously. And his own version of flirting back is stunted and quiet and uncertain, so he can’t know if Clint is taking it the way it’s intended or not anyhow. 

“Hey gorgeous,” Clint says, whenever he sits down across from Bucky. And Bucky doesn’t blush, but there’s something about it that settles warmly in his gut whenever Clint says it, whether he really means it or not. 

So it’s just a nice thing that Bucky lets himself enjoy, the _idea_ that someone might be interested in him in that way, whether it’s something he can pursue or not. 

Which means that it’s just as he’s letting himself accept the irrefutable trueness of it that Clint stops turning up at the shop, and the pay-it-forward coffee and Danishes disappear. That Bucky no longer has to pre-pay Clint’s next coffee, because the last one hasn’t been picked up yet. 

And, well, Bucky probably should have known better, because then it wouldn’t feel quite so shitty when it happens. 

**

It’s been a few weeks since he last saw Clint. He’s feeling more James than anything today, less Bucky, less relaxed, less a lot of things, and he’s trying not to draw conclusions about that based on how long it’s been since he’s seen Clint, but it’s hard. It’s been a few weeks, and today is a James day, and it’s just barely not… well, it’s not an asset day because he hasn’t been the asset in a long, long time, but he feels balanced on a knife’s edge most days right now, and he doesn’t have another word for it anyway. 

So it’s completely understandable that when the diminutive redhead drops into the seat across from him, his arm recalibrates in a noticeable, audible way it’s not done in years. It’s completely understandable that he’s startled and his brain registers that as ‘threat’ before it registers anything else.

But it’s not understandable that even after he registers her presence that the sense of alarm he feels _doesn’t_ _go away_. 

It’s not understandable right up until his brain pings in recognition: old, old memories overlaying themselves with the present so that he can simultaneously see the beautiful, put-together woman across from him at the same time that he can picture a tiny girl-child that barely reaches his chest learning to shoot next to him - _from_ him - and a slightly older teenager at his side on a cold, dark rooftop, and that’s when he knows the thing he’s been dreading all these years has happened.

He’s been found. 

His right hand finds the knife strapped to his back - the left is a weapon all on its own - and he clenches the handle tightly in the kind of grip that can be easily changed from defensive to offensive as needed. 

“Where’s Clint?” the Widow says, catching him off-guard. She looks unruffled, unassuming, in jeans and a blue sweater that’s tucked in with the sleeves cuffed, but Bucky’s been assessing threats for a long time now, and some part of his swiss-cheese brain knows this woman, and he can tell by looking she’s got at least four weapons on her. What he does _not_ know is how she knows about Clint.

“What?” he asks, because while she might have been trained in subterfuge, he was not. He was only ever a blunt weapon, and his ability to go unnoticed was for the sake of not being caught during a mission. He was never meant to be a spy. It’s hard to play a role when you’ve got something as memorable as a metal arm. 

“Where,” she says, and she smiles, like they’re having a normal conversation, but her lips curl like the edge of a blade and there’s something hard behind her eyes, “is Clint?”

He debates whether he should play dumb - he doesn’t know a Clint, never has - or whether he should tell her to go fuck herself, damn the possibly deadly consequences. If she’s not here for him, he can’t imagine why she’s looking for Clint, but it can’t be anything good. The Widow was never sent out for reasons that resulted in the betterment of her target. It’s been a long time since he’s had to fight anyone of her caliber, but he keeps in shape and he’s got a healing factor, so he gives himself pretty good survival odds. He leans back in his chair, sliding the knife from its holster as he does so, resting it on his thigh, and gives her a shit-eating grin. 

“Even if I knew, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell _you_.” 

Something about her posture changes when he says it, a sudden stillness and the sensation of being assessed all over again. Like a snake that’s waiting to see if you’re going to creep too close. And then her body just… loosens up, so that she’s switched from a lethal threat to being a casual young woman sitting across the table from him.

“Interesting,” she murmurs to herself, like Bucky’s a puzzle she’s just about pieced together. “So you’re the ‘sexy lips, murder strut’ I’ve heard so much about. Predictable.”

Bucky chokes on nothing. 

She smirks at him, infuriatingly impossible to read. He feels like he should know her, and he _does_ know her, kind of, but not in any way he can utilize at the moment. 

He tries to stare her down, but he gets the impression she mostly finds it amusing. She glances around the shop casually, and then back at Bucky, her green eyes evaluating as she cocks her head. 

“Well if you haven’t taken him, then I suppose we’re going to have to be the cavalry.” 

**

Bucky doesn’t know why he follows her, beyond the barest justification that he doesn’t want to have a fight to the death with her inside his favorite coffee shop. It seems rude, somehow, and besides, if she’s found him there, she can find him just about anywhere else at this point. He’s doubtful she’s stumbled across him by accident, and his suspicions are confirmed when she leads him back to his own apartment, albeit through an even more circuitous route than the one he usually takes. 

“Sorry,” she says, and almost sounds like she means it. “This is the most secure place I can think of at the moment.”

Bucky glances around at his shoebox apartment, cobbled together with things he’s found at secondhand stores and antique shops, quietly impersonal except for how everything in it was chosen by him. His plants are still growing on the windowsill even though the weather is turning cold, and he’s got a quilt thrown over the back of the sofa. There’s even a little dish on the fire escape for the cat, who’s only a day or two away from being coaxed inside, Bucky’s sure of it. He’s even given the thing a name - Alpine - because it's white and fluffy and aloof, and Bucky’s still not sure if it’s a girl or a boy. 

It’s not nearly as impersonal as he’d thought, because he’s just realizing it looks a lot like a _home_. 

He thinks of the stacks of books on the nightstand in his bedroom and sighs. She probably already cased the place before leading him back here.

“Why the fuck is the Widow looking for Clint?” Bucky says, instead of acknowledging literally anything else about the situation. He makes his way into the kitchen, where he’s at least got a couple of guns stashed away. And beer. 

She blinks at him and her mouth opens slightly - just the faintest show of surprise - before she laughs. “Why the fuck is the Winter Soldier having coffee with him?” she counters, and it’s a point Bucky can’t argue, but it doesn’t answer his question. 

“Ain’t the Soldier,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “Ain’t anything anymore. Not the asset, not an operative, I’m nothing but a construction worker.”

She hums. “Well as it happens, I also made a career change a couple of years ago. I’m surprised you hadn’t heard, but if you’re out of the business you wouldn’t have, I suppose.” She makes a little flourish with her hand, like she’s going to do a grande révérence, but doesn’t quite glide into the motion. “I got a new employer. Clint’s my partner. I’d tell you his call sign, but if you don’t know I’ve turned traitor to the cause, then you couldn’t possibly recognize it. Natasha Romanov, SHIELD agent, at your service.”

There’s no reason at all for Bucky to believe her. Except for all the little mannerisms he’s caught about Clint over the weeks and weeks they’ve spent together. The way he holds himself ready, and carries his weight lightly, and beats up Russian mobsters like it’s a hobby. 

And, obviously, there’s the fact that she’s already tracked him here and probably could have killed him in his sleep at any time. 

“C’mon cowboy,” the Widow - _Natasha_ , and Bucky suddenly remembers she’d been _Natalia_ , once - says. “Suit up, let’s go rescue your boyfriend.”

**

Bucky doesn’t have a suit. He hasn’t had a suit since he wandered out of an abandoned Russian base while the USSR was falling apart and the country was scrambling to put itself back together, but he does have a variety of weapons stashed away, and he’s always got spare body armor on hand, so he can make do with that and a dark colored shirt and pants. 

What he’d like to know is where in the hell she thinks he’s going to follow her off to; he deliberately ignores the ‘boyfriend’ comment. 

“We were on a mission,” Natasha says, when they’ve settled at his tiny dinette set like a couple of alley cats barely tolerating one another. Bucky’s peace offering is a bottle of vodka from the freezer, and Natasha’s is that she hasn’t tried to stab him for demanding answers before he’s willing to go anywhere. It took him a bit to catch on, but somewhere in between her admitting she and Clint work for SHIELD - an organization he’s heard of only peripherally and in whispers, which means he’d like to avoid it if possible - and calling him cowboy, he’s realizing this is her last-ditch effort. 

_Bucky_ is her last hope. 

It doesn’t seem like something that bodes well for Clint at all. So Bucky’s all ears, as she swirls chunks of ice-tray ice around in top-shelf Russian liquor. 

“He get captured?” Bucky asks, when she doesn’t say anything else for a long time. 

She takes a deep drink from her glass. “Oh no,” she laughs, but it’s bitter. “No, Clint’s a disaster of a human being, but he’s a good agent. The mission was simple. In and out. We were in Beirut for a couple of weeks, staked out the big bad guy, shot him, raided his safe for information, and back home by morning.” She snorts. “Congratulations on a job well done, take a couple of weeks downtime, don’t call us, we’ll call you.” She drains the glass, and Bucky refills it without being asked. 

At least that explains why Clint hasn’t been at the shop, and something in Bucky’s gut uncurls, some hard knot of sadness and rejection he hadn’t fully been aware of. Clint hadn’t given up on him, he’d just been working. 

“Set up,” he says, offering another explanation. 

Natasha snorts. “I genuinely don’t know. I trust our handler, but you know as well as I that you can only trust the man you can see, and then only if you can see both his hands.”

The phrasing sounds familiar, even if the cadence doesn’t, and it sends a shiver up Bucky’s spine. He wonders if it’s something he heard or something he said. He’s unhappy about the trip down memory lane. 

Natasha spreads her hands wide, palms up and open, a gesture of helplessness. “Two days after we got back Clint stopped returning my calls, and I got suspicious. I turned up at his place and he’s gone. Dog’s there, no food, no water. He dotes on the thing, so I knew he hadn’t left it behind. And the whole apartment is spotless - no sign of a struggle, of course - but Clint’s never kept a clean house in his life.” She glances around at Bucky’s neat-as-a-pin apartment. “Probably something you should think about for the future.”

The joke falls a little flat, but Bucky rolls his eyes to humor her. She’s trying not to let him see her concern, her fear for her partner, and she’s succeeding because to look at her she’s got steady hands and a clear gaze. But the fact she’s sitting in his kitchen is enough of a giveaway. Bucky knows it, and Natasha probably does too.

“So if you don’t know where he is, what do you expect us to do?”

Her eyes turn merciless again, that snake-like flatness from back at the coffee shop. “Oh I’m going to find out. I went looking for the mysterious man with a sweet tooth expecting a set-up, I wasn’t expecting to find _you_. If the two of us can’t find him and get him back, I can assure you that we can make whoever has taken him regret it.”

**

Natasha sleeps on his couch, wrapped up in the quilt from the back of the couch that Bucky had found in an antique shop in Queens, and Bucky lies in his bed and dissects all the situations and beats in time that have led him to this moment. He could leave. He considers it. Natasha could probably find him again, if she was of a mind to, but he isn’t the one who took Clint and he doesn’t think she’d waste much time chasing Bucky instead of her partner. 

The idea of leaving Clint alone somewhere, though, doesn’t sit right. It forms into a ball of emotions in his chest, sour and hard, lodged there. Bucky hasn’t been the original Bucky Barnes in a long, long, _long_ time. But that man wouldn’t have turned away from this, and the man Bucky is now finds that he can’t either. 

He tells himself it’s not _just_ because having Clint gone means it feels like there’s something missing from _Bucky’s_ life. He tells himself he would do it for anyone, and it almost doesn’t feel like a lie. 

So the next day when Natasha ducks out for several hours to hunt down whatever leads she can find, Bucky pulls out all the weapons he’s stashed in his apartment and in the building itself, and takes inventory of the arsenal. It’s enough, he knows from painfully earned experience, to take down a small army, if employed the right way. And Bucky knows - has had it burned into his bones - exactly how to employ it. 

He’s got Kevlar, too, and holsters and a utility belt. He’s even got the mask - has considered throwing it away a hundred times and then kept it a hundred times instead. He doesn’t want to be reminded of his time with his captors, but he also knows the value of hiding his facial features when necessary. If you’re going to flaunt a metal arm, it’s best to keep the rest of you unidentifiable. And the mask was designed with combat in mind, so it’s more likely to stay put than anything else he could come up with. 

Bucky doesn’t want to be the asset - the Winter Soldier - again, but the part of him that laid awake all night and chased his thoughts can’t let him abandon Clint to his fate, not when the Black Widow has as good as asked for his help. 

Natasha finds him like that - his gear neatly arranged on the low coffee table and his Kevlar folded up nearby - when she comes back that night. 

“Anything?” He asks.

The sour look on her face is enough to tell him the answer is no. 

“Not yet,” she grumbled, her jaw tight. “But there will be. I have a few more ideas.”

**

Two days later she comes in looking grimly triumphant. Bucky’s stopped going to work in the interim, calling to tell them he’s sick with the flu, which they probably know is a lie because Bucky’s never been sick a day in his admittedly-long life that he can remember, at least not since he was captured, but what can they do? He works under the table and does twice as much as most of the other men on the job with less complaint. They won’t fire him. Probably. 

“Barney fucking Barton,” she says, collapsing into what has become ‘her’ chair in Bucky’s tiny apartment. 

Bucky raises an eyebrow. 

“Clint’s brother,” she clarifies. 

Bucky didn’t know Clint had a brother, but then, Bucky’s starting to realize he doesn’t know that much about Clint. He knows how he likes his coffee, and his dog’s name, and his favorite color, and the way he laughs. He knows exactly what the sun looks like when it’s painting his skin shades of gold in the park, but this is the first time he’s heard Clint’s last name. Assuming he shares it with Barney. Bucky’s carefully ignoring how the realization makes him feel, especially when the bruised-shape of it slides in beside the warmer feelings he’s harboring for Clint that he is also ignoring. “What about him?”

“Oh, he’s a huge pain in the ass. Constantly pissing people off - he and Clint have that in common - and now he’s pissed off the Lithuanians and disappeared. So my guess is they’ve taken his brother to make him more cooperative.” She snorts. “They’re not going to like the result.”

“Why, because we’re going to get him back?”

Natasha gives him an unreadable look, then smirks. “Well, there is that. But I meant because Barney’s not going to do a damn thing about it.”

Bucky frowns. He starts to ask and then thinks better of it. Whatever’s happened between Clint and his brother isn’t his business, and anyway he’s got more important things to worry about, like getting Clint back. “How much trouble are the Lithuanians going to be?”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Hardly any. They fancy themselves a mob, but even the Russians do better, and Clint’s taken them out with a flower vase and a boomerang arrow on his worst day. I can’t understand why they’ve even still got him, the man could weasel out of a pair of handcuffs faster than you could say the word handcuffs, with nothing but a paperclip and a smile, and steal your wallet on the way out.”

For _some_ reason, it makes Bucky think of Clint in nothing but handcuffs and a smile, and he can feel a blush trying to work its way up his throat. He swallows the sensation back down at the same time that he banishes the imagery. Now is not the time for those kinds of thoughts. 

If he’s being honest with himself, _never_ is the time for those kinds of thoughts. 

**

The Lithuanians have got Clint in the basement of a laundromat. It’s honestly kinda embarrassing how easy it was to find, once Natasha knew what - or rather who - to look for. She’d been looking for big fish, not small fries, and they’ve had Clint a little over a week before he and Nat demolish the place on the way in. 

They don’t ask any questions. They got all the information they needed from some punk with a bad attitude who’d been more than willing to talk once Natasha had flashed that reptilian grin while Bucky stood menacingly behind her. 

So there are no questions when they bust into the place, smashing heads whenever anyone gets in their way. It doesn’t take long for people to stop getting in their way, but Bucky sees Natasha tracking faces and knows they won’t be getting very far for very long. She’d taken it kinda personal, the fact they’d got her partner, and Bucky has a feeling she’s a grudge-holder. 

The door to the basement is reinforced, but it’s not the kind of reinforced that Bucky can’t get through with ease, ripping the thing half off its hinges as he goes. Bucky takes point, only because he knows he can take a bullet better than Natasha can, special operative or not, and he gets briefly side tracked at the bottom of the stairs with a broad guy who’s holding a very illegal semi-automatic. He fires off a couple of pot-shots that Bucky easily deflects, stalking towards him with lethal intent, and Natasha darts the other way. Bucky doesn’t know if she knows what direction to go in or if she’s just taking the most expedient search route available at the moment, and he doesn’t have time to think about it for the few moments it takes to put the gun-holding asshole on the ground. He’s unconscious but not dead, and Bucky takes the time to tie him up and crush the barrel of the gun in his metal fist before tossing it aside. 

No need to get shot if he doesn’t have to. 

He turns and follows Natasha, because the hallway behind the downed gunman doesn’t seem to hold much of anything except a supply closet with mops and buckets and a dead end. He catches up with her just in time to find her picking the deadbolt on the outside of another reinforced door. 

“About time,” she mutters, stepping aside without being asked, and Bucky rips the deadbolt off the door with ease. 

Natasha kicks it in. 

Clint is sitting quietly in the corner, a little bruised and barefoot, in dirty sweatpants and a ripped t-shirt with a faded logo on the front. 

He looks up in surprise, and the tiny trace of hope on his face slides off for something gut-wrenching before it’s replaced by surprise and then a widening grin. 

The grin looks a little forced, but overall he doesn’t look too much worse for wear. The bruises on his face are fading to sickly yellow-green, but he’s otherwise uninjured if a little tired-looking. He’s not even tied up. The room doesn’t have a window, but Bucky can’t help but think that the pitiful resistance they’d encountered probably wouldn’t have stopped him if he’d been determined to leave. 

“Идиот,” Nat grumbles, but she sounds soft in a way Bucky’s never heard from her before. 

Clint shrugs and ducks his head, scuffing the edge of his bare foot on the ground. 

“You left your mutt,” Natasha tells him, crouching down in front of him and taking his chin between her fingers to assess the damage to his face. 

“Knew you’d find him,” Clint says softly. “I wasn’t worried.” Bucky can hear the unspoken part that means he knew that somehow, eventually, Natasha would have come for him. It’s just - Bucky thinks - that he was hoping someone else would first. 

Barney Barton is a grade-A asshole, Bucky decides, and he might just pay him a visit. 

Bucky doesn’t see her roll her eyes, but the general sense of exasperation she gives off is palpable. 

“Found your boyfriend, too,” she says, sounding smug about it, and Clint glances over her shoulder to get a good look at Bucky. His eyes widen as he takes him in, eyes trailing from the top of Bucky’s loosely-pulled-back hair, to the mask he’d opted at the last minute to wear just in case, down past the kevlar and tac pants to the steel-toed boots, and then back up to linger on the metal arm on full display. 

“Holy shit,” Clint says. His mouth is hanging a little open, and Bucky thinks it should probably be unattractive, but it’s honestly a little endearing. Jesus, it’s possible Bucky’s got it even worse than he thought. “Holy _shit_ ,” Clint says again. 

Bucky sighs and tugs the mask down his face, letting it dangle around his neck. He gives Clint a look that tries to convey _Really?_ and _These guys?_ and _I had to come out of retirement for this?_ all in one eyebrow raise. 

“Well mark me down as scared _and_ horny,” Clint mutters, low enough that he probably thinks Bucky can’t hear it, and Natasha snorts. 

She stands and offers Clint a hand up, which he takes and clambers to his feet. 

“You got shoes?” Bucky asks, glancing down at Clint’s bare feet.

“Nah, they took ‘em after I kneecapped a couple of guys.”

Bucky sighs, then bends down to start unlacing his boots. If he steps on broken glass or a stray hypodermic on the way out he’ll heal, and besides, Clint’s been here for days and looks underfed and dehydrated, and Bucky hasn’t gotten to punch enough guys to get the adrenaline out of his system. He won’t even notice a scraped toe or a scratched sole at this point. He passes the boots to Clint, who sits them on the floor and stuffs his feet in. Bucky can tell they’re a tight fit, and he leaves them unlaced, but at least his feet aren’t gonna get ruined walking outta here. 

“I feel like my feet aren’t gonna attract as much attention as your,” Clint gestures at Bucky’s left side, “you know.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. It’s stupid, how relaxed he feels, now that Clint’s in eyesight, within touching distance. He should be worried, he should be nervous. Clint knows his secret now, and if he’s in the kinda business Nat’s said that he’s in, he’s gotta know who - _what_ \- Bucky is. But he’s having a hard time getting worked up about it at the moment, all his cautious instincts overwhelmed by relief. 

Clint looks a little unsteady on his feet as they turn to move out of the room, and Natasha gives Bucky a look before darting out ahead of them, a gun in her hands. Bucky inserts himself at Clint’s side, not quite propping him up but ready to provide support if it’s needed. Clint’s even taller in Bucky’s boots, he notes sourly, but swaps his gun to his left hand in case he needs the right to act as a crutch. 

They pick their way down the hall, around the groaning people on the ground and avoiding any obvious stains on the floor. Bucky’s _pretty_ sure they haven’t left any dead bodies behind, but it’s still best to leave before they draw more attention than necessary. It’s dark out and it’s late, and this isn’t the sort of neighborhood where people are likely to call the cops over a couple of stray gunshots, but Bucky wants to be gone five minutes ago. 

Natasha is waiting at the top of the stairs with a dark-colored jacket that she hands wordlessly to Bucky. It’s relatively clean, though the right sleeve is a little slashed and has some suspicious-looking stains around the cuff, but it will probably go unnoticed in the darkness outside. Bucky steps away from Clint long enough to shrug it on. His hand is still visible, but it’s better than nothing. 

When they step outside the building, Bucky pauses to take a deep breath of air that isn’t dank and humid, and then stops short when he sees the tense line of Natasha’s spine. He grips the gun harder, and steps a little in front of Clint. He doesn’t know what’s got her back up, but he’s ready and able to handle it with extreme prejudice. 

Strangely, the only thing out of place is an unassuming man in a dark suit, leaning against what is clearly a government-issue SUV that’s very illegally parked. 

Bucky steps more fully in front of Clint. 

Natasha takes a careful breath, and then huffs it out in something that sounds like it’s caught between a laugh and sigh, before she tucks her gun into the back of her pants.

“Coulson,” she says carefully. 

_Coulson_ straightens up from the edge of the SUV and gives them all a casual glance. “Nice night,” he says, looking around briefly, before giving Natasha a pointed look, and glancing over Bucky’s shoulder at Clint. Bucky tries to edge Clint even further behind him, but Clint steps out and rubs a hand over the back of his neck kinda sheepishly. 

“Hey Phil,” Clint says, subdued. 

Phil Coulson gives him a once-over that takes in everything from his messy, unwashed hair, to the bruises on his face, to the too-small boots on his feet, but whatever he sees seems to soothe something in him, because his mouth curls up in a smile that’s at least a little bit fond as well as amused. “You didn’t really think that I wasn’t going to notice one of my best agents going missing and the other going on a one-woman rescue mission that decimated half the Lithuanian operation did you?”

“The other half will be handled,” Nat happily informs him. 

Jesus, what has Bucky got himself into?

The man’s piercing blue gaze turns to Bucky, and Bucky finds himself scrutinized in a way he hasn’t been in years and doesn’t particularly like. It sends a chill up his spine, the way he’s being assessed and categorized, everything from the mask around his neck to the cool metal fingers wrapped around the hilt of the gun. After a moment, he seems to reach some sort of conclusion, because his face creases into a bland smile that’s nothing like the one he had for Natasha and Clint, and he takes a couple of steps forward to hold out his hand. 

“Phil Coulson, Agent of SHIELD,” he says, while Bucky looks between his face and his hand. 

“James,” Bucky says cautiously. He doesn’t take the proffered handshake. 

Clint is looking between them with increasing amounts of confusion, while Natasha just looks amused and vaguely bored, like she already knows how this is going to play out and is ready to get to the end already. 

After a moment, Agent Phil Coulson drops the hand, looking entirely nonplussed. He reaches for the inside pocket of his jacket and Bucky tenses, but he just pulls out a slim business card and passes it over. Bucky takes it, flicking it over to read the front, which is just an eagle logo that tells him absolutely nothing, and the back which is just _Philip Coulson, SHIELD Agent_ with a phone number. Bucky raises an eyebrow and passes the card right back.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” he says, tucking his own gun away. He ignores the shocked look on Clint’s face. Bucky’s willing to strap the weapons back on and use the skills Hydra had burned into him to get Clint back, but he’s not interested in making a career out of it. He had enough of that - a whole lifetime, in fact - and he’s definitely not going to do it for a shady government organization he doesn’t know a thing about. 

“You could help a lot of people with skills like yours,” Agent Coulson says, but the tone says he knows Bucky’s already made up his mind and it isn’t likely he’s going to change it. 

“I’m retired,” Bucky says.

Agent Coulson gives him a pointed look, especially the knives strapped to his thighs and the spot where he’d hidden the gun. 

“Reformed,” Bucky amends. 

“If you change your mind-”

“I won’t.” Who would water his plants if anything happened to him? Who would feed the cat?

Agent Coulson gives him a small smile and a nod, and turns back to Natasha. “I expect a full report on my desk by Monday morning, Agent Romanov.”

Natasha blows out an exasperated breath but doesn’t argue. 

“Glad to have you back, Barton,” Agent Coulson says, nodding at Clint, before skirting around the front of the SUV and sliding into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t even check the rearview mirror as he drives away, and Bucky can feel some of the tension leaving his shoulders as the vehicle disappears into the flow of traffic. 

“C’mon,” Bucky says, gently butting up against Clint. “Let’s get out of here.” He nudges Clint in the direction of the subway stop that will take them back to his place, but Natasha stops them with a delicate clearing of her throat. Bucky turns back with a frown. 

“His apartment’s compromised,” she points out, and dammit, she’s got a point. They haven’t eliminated all of the Lithuanians, and it’s possible they might try to retaliate. Unlikely, given the decimation Bucky and Natasha have left in their wake, but Clint obviously hadn’t put up any kind of a real fight so he probably seems like a soft target at the moment. 

Bucky reverses course and starts directing Clint the other way. His apartment’s closer anyway, though he’s certain Natasha has factored that into her carefully-timed statement. She could have offered to take Clint home with her, after all, and she definitely hasn’t. Bucky shakes off the trepidation of taking Clint back to his place as best he can. He’s not used to having people in his space, for all that Natasha’ practically been in his pocket for the last week, and there’s something that’s both nerve-wracking and anticipatory about having Clint there instead. 

“Wait- but…” Clint trails off, looking forlorn, and then says, “Lucky?”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “He’s at Kate’s, but I can bring him by in the morning, once you’ve had a shower and some food and some _sleep_.” 

Clint pouts, but Natasha is unmoved. Bucky is mostly mildly annoyed at playing spectator to his own life - it’s his apartment, after all - but in fairness it wasn’t like he was gonna tell Clint he _couldn’t_ have the dog at his place. 

“C’mon,” he encourages, once Clint and Natasha have had their staredown and Clint has decidedly lost. “Let’s go before the cops show up.”

They walk in silence for a few blocks, Bucky carefully scanning the shadows while Clint just seems to be deep in thought. It’s really not that far, but Bucky takes care to make sure they aren’t followed, and he doubles back a couple of times even though he knows Clint’s tired and he himself isn’t wearing any shoes. By the time they’re trudging up the stairs to Bucky’s place, Clint looks absolutely wiped, but he also keeps shooting Bucky strange glances that Bucky can’t quite decipher. 

Bucky pauses at his door, key in hand. It’s not that he doesn’t want Clint here, or even that he’s all that nervous about it, it just feels… big.

“I can go home,” Clint offers behind him. He sounds earnest but subdued, and Bucky doesn’t know if that’s because he’s tired or because of Bucky’s own hang-ups.

“No, you can’t,” Bucky says, decisively sliding the key into the lock.

Bucky unlocks the door, and opens it silently, stepping out of the way so that Clint can go in first. He follows him in and locks the door, watching and Clint takes it all in, glancing at all the things Bucky had noticed when Natasha first came by, and seeing it again with new eyes. He’s left the window open, forgotten, and Alpine is on the back of the couch, tail flicking with irritation. Bucky can’t find it in him to be as excited as he probably would have been a month ago, but he’s still grateful to see the little white furball taking up space in his home. The quilt on the couch is wadded up near the armrest, kicked down by Natasha and left there. There’s a pillow at the other end that still has an indentation in it from her head. The weapons Bucky hadn’t taken with him are put away, but the detritus of mission planning is still lying around in tossed off bits and pieces. There’s the scent of gun oil in the air, and Bucky’s knife sharpening block is still lying on the coffee table. 

His herbs are still on the windowsill though, and he can see the mint trying to creep into the pot of thyme next to it and he makes a mental note to shift it even further away. 

There’s still a cat on his couch.

The kitchen smells like lemon soap and wood oil.

There’s an odd dichotomy to it, but one that seems to fit, if the way Clint’s shoulders untense as he looks around is any indication. 

“The bathroom’s this way,” Bucky says, leading Clint down the narrow hall and into the miniscule bathroom. It smells like lemons in here too, because Bucky favors citrus-scented cleaning products, a fact he’s never thought much of before now. He flips the lights on and shows Clint the soap and the shampoo and the towels, and then he leaves him to it. 

Bucky retreats to the bedroom, where he strips off his gear and dumps most of the clothing into a trash bag to be disposed of later. The Kevlar gets carefully checked for damage and then put away, and the weapons get cleaned up enough for storage until Bucky can go back over them again and stash them in their hiding places. He pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that are probably going to be a bit short on Clint, but at least they’ll be clean. He hesitates over underwear - is it better to freeball in your sort-of friend’s sweatpants, or wear his underwear? In the end he adds thick socks to the pile and leaves them outside the bathroom with a brief knock on the door to let Clint know they’re there, and he tries really hard not to focus on the fact that Clint is currently naked inside his home. 

Bucky needs a shower too, but for now he takes the time to scrub his hands and face at the kitchen sink and pull on his own sweatpants and long-sleeved shirt. Clint’s seen his arm now, sure, but there’s no need to rub his nose in it. He’s glaring into the fridge and wondering what kind of meal he can come up with from a half carton of eggs and some sandwich meat when he hears the bathroom door open and the slap of Clint’s bare feet on the wooden floor. 

Bucky turns around.

It is a mistake. 

There is something nearly unbearable about seeing Clint dressed in his clothes, standing in his living room and looking bewildered. It cracks something in Bucky’s chest that has held all of the uncertainty and careful hope and tenderness he’s been denying for all the time he’s known Clint, and leaves him floundering in feelings he isn’t meant to have and that probably aren’t welcome. 

“Pizza?” he manages, as Clint stares back at him, wide-eyed and deer-like. Bucky is sure everything that’s churning in his gut is painted, plain as day, on his face. 

Clint brightens at the suggestion though, and after a second Bucky remembers that the only thing Clint likes more than coffee is pizza. He’s almost certain he’s heard Clint wax poetic about toppings before. He’s fairly sure Clint’s got his favorite pizza joint’s phone number memorized and not his own. 

Bucky gestures at the phone on the wall. As Clint is picking up the receiver to dial, Bucky digs money out of the cookie jar on top of the fridge, a habit that feels as old as he is that he can’t recall learning. He looks at his mismatched hands on the jar and sighs. There’s a lot of things he can’t remember, and probably never will. The cookie jar goes back, and the Bucky puts the cash for the pizza on the table where it’ll be in easy reach when the food arrives. 

“Gonna grab a quick shower,” Bucky says, motioning at Clint and walking backwards down the hall while he waits for a response. Clint shoots him a thumbs up and Bucky locks himself in the still-humid bathroom. 

Jesus, he has to get it together. 

By the time Bucky gets out of the shower and back to the living room, Clint is handing money to the pizza delivery guy and accepting two large boxes in return. Bucky doesn’t think he was in the shower that long, but then the delivery guy calls Clint by name and Bucky figures he’s called in a favor to get the pizza there faster. 

Which, now Clint’s favorite pizza place knows Bucky’s address and that’s a bit of a mindfuck. 

“You wanna…” Clint trails off, looking between the miniscule dining table and the coffee table in front of the couch kinda helplessly. 

Bucky gestures him over, still scrubbing at his hair with a towel, and Clint deposits the pizzas on the coffee table while Bucky reaches for the remote. He doesn’t watch a lot of TV, and he seldom watches the news, but he thinks it might be prudent to turn it on tonight to make sure his face isn’t on a wanted poster. He flicks to a local news channel and sets the closed captioning before muting the sound. Sure enough there’s a special report on the screen, with a harried-looking reporter interviewing a police officer outside the laundromat that Bucky and Natasha trashed just a couple of hours ago. It looks like they’re blaming the whole thing on intergang rivalry, though the officer seems puzzled that there are no casualties. 

Good.

Clint opens the pizza boxes and the smell of cheese and grease waft out, and Bucky’s stomach rumbles. Clint’s already got a slice in each hand before Bucky even registers what the toppings are. Not that it matters, he can still remember protein slurry so at this point in his life there’s not much he won’t eat. 

The TV continues on in the background, flashing blue and red lights and cutting back to the reporter as Clint and Bucky eat their pizza in silence. Bucky knows he can put away an entire pizza himself if he’s hungry, but he’s still impressed with the amount of food Clint manages to pack away. 

“Did they not feed you at all?” he asks at one point.

“Oh sure, but not _pizza_ ,” Clint says, like it’s perfectly normal to be held hostage by a rogue mob for several days awaiting rescue. 

Hell, maybe it is.

Bucky doesn’t know. 

Halfway through, Bucky goes and gets a beer for each of them. Clint probably shouldn’t have a beer, all things considered, but he’s an adult who can do what he likes, so when Bucky offers and Clint says yes, Bucky brings him a beer. He’s not gonna offer a second one, but he figures one won’t hurt. 

When he finally leans back, apparently full, Clint sips his beer thoughtfully and keeps shooting Bucky confused glances. Bucky tolerates it for a while before he finally sighs, turning towards Clint with a raised eyebrow.

“Out with it,” Bucky tells him.

“What?”

“Whatever it is that’s got you looking at me like that, you might as well get it off your chest,” Bucky says, resigned. 

“I just don’t get it,” Clint says, and Bucky must look confused, because he gestures at the forgotten television screen. “You’re just as good as Nat-”

“I trained her,” Bucky interrupts, like his pride’s been pricked.

“-and you just… Sorry, did you say you _trained_ her?” Clint shakes his head. “We’ll come back to that. I don’t… You just… what? Work construction under the table?” Bucky opens his mouth to respond, but Clint barrels on over him. “I mean Phil offered you a job and you didn’t even ask for details. I just don’t understand.”

Of all the things Clint could have said or asked him about - the metal arm, his history, who he _is_ \- this is not what Bucky was expecting.

“I’m never, ever going to let anyone tell me who to kill again,” Bucky says very deliberately. 

Clint blinks at him, beer held halfway to his mouth. 

“I spent a lot of years without any choices,” Bucky continues, “and that included who lived and who died, and I’m not gonna let anyone use me like that. I’m not a weapon anymore.”

Clint’s eyes flick to his metal hand and back, but he still looks more confused than judgmental. “But- you came after me?” he says, and he sounds so uncertain that Bucky has to resist the urge to pull him into his arms. 

“Because it was _you_ ,” Bucky explains, feeling a prick of tension again when he remembers what it was like to know Clint had been taken, to see him being held in that basement. “Not because I like to fight. I don’t want to fight, Clint. I want to convince this cat to like me, and drink coffee, eat pastries, and live in my apartment like a normal person. You needed me, so I came. But I don’t wanna fight.”

Clint looks doubtful. He’s watching Bucky with narrowed eyes, like he’s waiting for the punchline. “So… you like me?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Yes, Clint, I like you.”

“You like me enough to come out of assassin retirement and beat up the entire Lithuanian mafia to get me back.”

When he says it like that, it sounds ridiculous. “Yes?”

Clint starts to grin, slow-growing and a little mischievous as he sets his beer on the table and leans forward until he and Bucky are nearly touching. “You like-like me,” he says, kinda sing-song, and Bucky blinks at him. 

“Yes?” Bucky says again, drawing the sound out to emphasize his confusion.

Darting forward, Clint presses his mouth to Bucky’s - there and gone again, just the impression of lips, the first kiss he’s had in decades and it’s barely even anything - before he leans back to check Bucky’s expression, which is probably pole-axed. He leans in a little slower the second time, gives Bucky time to react, and Bucky’s reaction is to tangle his fingers in the short hair on the back of Clint’s head and tilt his head so that their mouths line up a little better this time, so Bucky can memorize the taste and feel of him, because if he’s gonna kiss Clint, he’s gonna _kiss_ Clint. 

“You kissed me,” Bucky says, a little disbelieving, when they part. His fingers are still tangled in Clint’s hair, and his other hand is wrapped around Clint’s waist, where he doesn’t remember putting it. 

Clint shrugs. “I figured it would either get me laid or get me stabbed, and it was a risk I was willing to take.”

“Jesus,” Bucky says. “You’ve got no sense of self-preservation at all do you?”

“Nat says I’ve got the survival instincts of a lemming,” Clint tells him proudly. “So I guess you’ll have your work cut out for you.” The last part comes out blustery, but Bucky can hear the uncertainty underneath, can feel it in the tremble under his fingertips.

“Guess I do,” Bucky says, and reels Clint back in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Steph and Dr. G for giving this a good look over and beta read, helping me with the ending, and being as generous as always with time and attention. And also to Amy, who fixed a really fucked up sentence. We had to murder TWO commas, which is very hard for us.
> 
> To Steph who helpfully named my generic coffee shop.
> 
> To Amy who let me borrow a line for Clint's use. 
> 
> And to Sara and Amy, whom I have left a small Easter egg in the fic <3


End file.
